Statement from the NTV Public Council

The NTV Public Council expresses its deepest respect to the staff of the television company, who throughout the year, despite frantic pressure, courageously continued to fulfill their duties to television viewers, maintaining independence and trying to show impartiality, which is hardly possible at all in such conditions. Many compare the takeover of the television company with the events of August 1991. Then Russian society fought against the putschists who were trying to seize power. Now Russian society is dealing with putschists trying to seize free speech and fair justice. What happened last night could have extremely dangerous and far-reaching consequences.

The Public Council states that all its previous calls for finding a legal and fair solution and for preserving the unique creative team of NTV were not heard. Those who opposed the television company did not keep their loud promises to resolve the matter peacefully, apparently fearing that the court might overturn the illegal decisions of the shareholders meeting. They decided to preempt the court and thus render its decisions useless.

We remind you that the President of the Russian Federation V.V. Putin, in a personal conversation with the chairman of the NTV Public Council M.S. Gorbachev, supported the position of the NTV team, agreeing that it was the court that should resolve the protracted conflict. However, in reality, the rule of force was opposed to the force of law. The President must keep his word and put an end to lawlessness by instructing the Prosecutor General's Office to open a criminal case on the grounds of arbitrariness and obstruction of the legitimate professional activities of journalists. The Public Council will also support a similar appeal from journalists forced to leave their jobs at the NTV channel.

Due to the fact that the new management of the NTV television company ignores the appeals of the Public Council, thereby showing the lack of mutual understanding in matters of freedom of the media and the principles of journalistic ethics on which our cooperation was based, we suspend our activities as an independent body of public control over NTV, but as citizens we continue to support the collective of truly independent television.

April 14, 2001

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